In a number of dental and orthodontic procedures, hardware is fitted on or around a tooth of a patient. For instance, orthodontic bands consisting of a thin strip of steel may be placed about the perimeter of a tooth and cemented into place. Accordingly, additional hardware (e.g., brackets) may be attached to these bands.
As will be appreciated, it is desirable for dental hardware placed on or around a tooth to conform with that tooth in order to achieve a secure interconnection, as well as for reasons of patient comfort. In this regard, dental hardware such as crowns and bands come in a variety of sizes to accommodate differently sized teeth, as well as to accommodate multiple classes of teeth (e.g., incisors, bicuspids, molars, and corresponding groups of deciduous teeth). Fitting of such hardware to the teeth of a patient has typically been performed via a trial and error approach where a dental technician examines a given tooth and estimates the appropriate size for the hardware. Due to the irregular shape of many teeth, such estimation is often an inefficient method for selecting hardware. For instance, when fitting bands, a technician may have to place multiple bands about a single tooth in order to identify hardware of the correct size. In addition to increasing the time required for fitting, this requires re-sterilization and restocking of tested, but incorrectly sized hardware. Accordingly, a device for accurately and easily measuring the circumference of a tooth would be desirable.